(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to fire extinguishing and suppressing devices and more particularly to fire extinguishing and suppressing devices for use in vehicles.
(2) Brief Description of Prior Art
In the prior art various types of fire extinguishing devices have been used in vehicles, particularly in industrial, military and racing vehicles. Because of increasing consumer demand for improved safety features, there has also recently been greater interest in using such fire extinguishing devices in passenger vehicles. An impediment, however, to the development of vehicular fire extinguishing systems has developed due to regulatory limits on the use of HALON and other similar fire extinguishing compositions. A need exists, therefore, for a fire extinguishing device which may be effectively activated in response to a vehicular fire and which effectively extinguishes fires without the use of HALON or other similar compositions.
The vehicular fire extinguishing or suppressing device of this invention comprises a pressurized vessel which contains a fire extinguishing composition and which has a fire extinguishing exit means. The vessel includes a means for retaining the fire extinguishing composition in the vessel and a means for deactivating the means for retaining the fire extinguishing composition in the vessel in response to a sensing of a fire in the vehicle in which the device is used.
The invention also encompasses a fire extinguishing or suppressing device that has a rigid vessel having an interior space and an exit. An unexpandable flexible bladder is positioned in the interior space of the rigid vessel forming a space between the flexible bladder and the rigid vessel. A fire extinguishing composition is contained within the flexible bladder; and a pressurized gas is interposed between the rigid vessel and the flexible bladder.